Children's play area 'crawl-through'?

[shagster]

I want to create a children's play area, and part of it involves tubes that they can crawl through, approx 0.9m in diameter, I've looked at several approaches to this.

1) Culvert piping. Quite expensive, won't have flanges to connect the ends but they are quite sturdy. Some people are selling second-hand sections on Ebay.

2) Make up a crawl-through in box-sections using ply. This is probably the cheapest option, but needs to be painted for outdoors and constructed. The sides can be thinner ply than the bottom but needs to be carefully sanded to avoid splinters.

3) Purchase proper playground equipment for slides. The plastic flanged tube sections used in soft-play areas come with the fittings but are insanely expensive, around £400/metre length, the advantage is they also do curved sections.

4) I have a feeling steel flanged pipe sections will be cheaper because they're mass-produced:



These may be too heavy with walls way thicker than I need for supporing the weight of a child but I wondered if I can source different versions of them.

If anyone has any other ideas, or where I can buy stuff like this without it costing a mint I'd love to know.

thanks!
S.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

As you say, any proper kids play equipment costs a fortune, something like a 'hdpe corrugated pipe 750mm' would work but I guess you'd have to buy a 6m length or something (and wouldn't be much cheaper either). I suspect you're best off with checking ebay for off-cuts or a diy solution. You could try contacting a few local civil engineering contractors to see if they have some off-cuts lying about in the yard.

 

[cdbe]

Is this for private use? If not you're into approved suppliers, design, specialist inspections and insurance.
I can just imagine that steel pipe rolling into a child!

This is why my kids school paid £12,000 for a trim trail, which is about (in raw materials) two grands worth of timber, rope, SS fixings and squishy tarmac plus a week's worth of (shiny Merc van driving) labour to fit it.

If it's for your own use I'd have thought the ribbed plastic stuff if you can pick it up on eBay, and maybe something nearer 0.6 diameter may be a better size.

Have a look in your local parks, probably best not to mention your user name to anyone you might bump into!!!!

 

[shagster]

It is for private use, and don't worry I am perfectly capable of constructing stuff that won't fall over that pipe will not be rolling anywhere once I'm done with it, I'm very risk-averse. The main reason they pay so much for the commercial stuff is because the council will get sued if they get it wrong. It's still a theoretical risk for me if we have visitors but that's going to be a problem with practically anything in your garden, e.g. buying (not making) a trampoline and having visiting kids injure themselves on it is no protection from legal action as people have found to their cost.

 

[foxhole]

Box tunnel much cheaper and easy to make.

 

[Tigercubrider]

Metal pipe will get bloody hot in summer.
I remember the days of playground slides made of metal and shorts....
Plastic barrels joined end to end?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

There's a metal pipe one near where I live, that doesn't get hot in the summer, tis buried mind. Not sure if the end where it must catch the sun does or not though.

 

[shagster]

Box tunnel much cheaper and easy to make.

What's a box tunnel?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Is this tunnel going to be above ground level, sunk down, covered over with an earth bank or what?

 

[scbk]

Metal pipe will get bloody hot in summer.
I remember the days of playground slides made of metal and shorts....
Plastic barrels joined end to end?

That's what I was gonna say, blue drums with the ends cut off, hopefully get them for £0-£20 each.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Using that philosophy what about old oil drums? Obviously might need a bit of a de-grease!

 

[Tigercubrider]

Just search for food grade drums

 

[Ryler]

You can get 900mm dia plastic pipe....

About £400 quid per 3m length.
Polypipes plastic Rigidstorm-XL ranges from 750mm dia to 3000mm dia.

 

[catlad]

Try your local reclamation yards they might surprise you.

 

[shagster]

Is this tunnel going to be above ground level, sunk down, covered over with an earth bank or what?

Good question. It's going to be about 2ft above ground, connecting two 'buildings'. The main reason to put it above ground is to avoid any possibility of it filling with water or other cr*p, though it probably will anyway with muddy shoes in winter etc...